


A Girl In His Room

by my_mad_fatuation



Series: A Boy In Her Room [2]
Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-14 06:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7158314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_mad_fatuation/pseuds/my_mad_fatuation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rae is back in Finn’s room again while her roommate has the flu, though Chloe keeps pressuring Rae to take her relationship to the next level, if you know what I mean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Girl In His Room

There was a girl in his room.

This shouldn’t have been that weird. Rae had lived in the same room as Finn for a whole week at the beginning of the semester. A few more days were no big deal, right?

Of course, she lived there before they started dating, and that changed everything. (As much as she didn’t like him seeing her in her pyjamas before, she especially didn’t like it now.)

But what choice did she have? Her roommate, Lois, was sick with a terrible flu, and Rae had a huge presentation for class in a few days that she could not miss. She just couldn’t take any chances.

It only made sense for her to stay in Finn’s room, since he still had a double because he didn’t have a roommate yet.

Really, it wasn’t all that different from most nights. Rae and Finn ate with the rest of the gang at the dining hall, and then went back to his room to do homework. (How risqué!) Afterwards, they watched some Netflix and went to sleep. Only this time Rae just went to sleep in the next bed instead of in her room a couple floors down.

Other than that one small detail, the past few weeks had been exactly the same as this. But that one small detail felt huge to her.

“This is sort of weird,” she said quietly as she lay in what was at one point her own bed, staring up at the ceiling.

“What is?” Finn replied from the other side of the room.

“Me being back here.”

“You’re here every day.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t slept here in weeks. It’s weird now.”

“Oh. Sorry. Can I do something?”

“You could stop talking, for starters.”

“You’re the one who started talking!” he said in a loud whisper.

“Well, now I want you to stop, alright?”

“Fine.”

“You’re still talking!”

He remained silent.

“…Finn?” she said after a couple of minutes.

No response.

“…Now it’s too quiet.”

***

“Alright, babes,” Chloe said, hooking her arm around Rae’s elbow as the two of them walked to the dining hall for breakfast. “Tell me everything.”

“Everything about what?” Rae asked, frowning.

“You just spent your first night with Finn, you know, as an official couple.”

“So? I’ve shared a room with him for a week before.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like you were sharing a bed back then.”

Rae looked at her friend, confused.

“Oh my god, were you sharing a bed back then?” Chloe said, eyes wide.

“What? No! We’ve never shared a bed. Jesus, Chloe.”

“Not even last night?”

“No. Why would I? There’s an empty bed right there. Plus those beds are so narrow, how would you even fit two people on one of them?”

“Very intimately.”

Rae cringed.

“So you just had sex and then slept in different beds?” asked Chloe as they entered the dining hall.

“We didn’t have sex!”

A couple people at a nearby table looked at them and Rae felt like she was going to die.

They walked a few more paces before Chloe added, “So you two still haven’t—“

“Can we just drop it?”

“Fine.” She paused for a moment. “Okay, but why haven’t you?”

“That’s not dropping it.”

“Look, I get that you’re a vir—“

Rae cleared her throat loudly to interrupt her friend as she picked up a tray.

“But it’s been over a month,” Chloe went on.

“Look, I have a lot of other stuff going on in my life right now, with school and everything, I don’t have time to think about that sort of thing.”

Except she did think about that sort of thing. A lot. She daydreamed about all the things she would do to Finn when she should have been studying or taking notes.

And yet, she maintained a strict three-feet-on-the-floor policy when making out with him. She wasn’t ready to deal with that part of their relationship yet, and she wasn’t about to let her friends pressure her into doing more just because of some arbitrary timeline.

***

After breakfast, Rae returned to her residence with Chloe, but when she got to the door of Finn’s room, it was locked.

“I thought he was supposed to be back from class by now,” she said, giving the handle another twist.

“Do you want to wait in my room?” Chloe offered, unlocking the next door. “I have a lecture now, but you can hang out in here until he gets back.” She walked in, leaving the door open wide behind her, and shoved her laptop into an oversized purse.

“It’s fine,” Rae said, pulling out her phone to text Finn. “I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”

“Okay, well, I’ll see you at dinner, anyway. Laters.” Chloe came back out and shut the door to her room behind her before heading towards the stairwell.

Rae leaned against Finn’s door, eventually slumping down until she was sitting on the floor. Still no response from him.

“Waiting for your boyfriend?”

She looked up to see one of the pricks from the next room over standing above her with a smirk on his face. She scowled and looked away. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said—that was a lie, but it was none of his business.

“I hear you’ve been spending the night up here again,” he continued.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“I saw ya going in last night and my roommate saw ya leaving this morning. Which is strange, ‘cause I thought you had a new room downstairs.”

“I don’t know what you’re on about, I was downstairs last night.”

“Right. Of course. It would be against the rules for you to spend the night in someone else’s room, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, I didn’t.”

He kept on talking, like he was reveling in just how unwelcome his presence was. “Then again, why any guy would want you to spend the night in his room is beyond me.”

Rae was frankly quite bored with this harassment and considered just going to the library, but her computer and books were all inside Finn’s room.

“Are you two actually bangin’?”

She rolled her eyes heavily and was relieved to see Finn coming down the corridor. She stood and he slowed down as he approached.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Just havin’ a friendly chat,” said the not-so-friendly neighbour.

“I bet.” Finn pushed past him to unlock his door so he and Rae could go inside. Once he shut the door behind them, he added to her, “Sorry ‘bout that. Were you waiting long?”

“I texted you.”

“Oh.” He fished his phone out of his pocket and looked at it. “Shit. I didn’t realize I was so late. I had to ask the prof a question after class and then we started chatting and apparently I lost track of time.”

“It’s fine,” said Rae. “It’s just that I’m kind of dependent on you to be here when you’re supposed to be since I don’t have a key anymore.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“I said it’s fine.”

“So what was he buggin’ you about?”

“Oh, the usual. Though apparently he knows that I stayed here last night so I’ve got to be more careful. He would rat us out in an instant.”

“Can’t he just mind his own fucking business? I know he has a kettle in his room, which he’s not supposed to have.”

Rae looked over towards the mini-fridge by the window that had a small electric kettle sitting on top of it.

“I know, I know! Shut up.”

***

Rae slept uneasily that night, and was extra careful getting up in the morning. She made Finn check that there was nobody in the corridor before she left for her first class of the day.

When she returned from her back-to-back classes, she had to wait for Finn for a couple of minutes as he had gone to get breakfast with the lads across the hall.

“Gee, Rae, good to see ya,” he said loudly to her as he neared his room. “I haven’t seen you since yesterday.”

“No need to ham it up, there,” she muttered, stepping into the room quickly.

“I thought we were trying to throw people off the scent,” he teased.

“You think I’m overreacting, but we could get in real trouble for this!”

“No, I believe you. I just don’t think anyone else actually cares enough to report us, as long as we don’t do anything disruptive.” He paused then added, “You may want to check your sleep-counting though; that could be a giveaway.”

“I still don’t believe you that I count out loud in my sleep.” Rae took a seat on her temporary bed. “Even if I do count in my sleep—which I’m not saying I do—how would I stop myself from doing it?”

“Get one of those bite-guard things for people who grind their teeth?”

“Yeah, that’s attractive.”

Finn shrugged. “Who are you trying to impress?”

Rae bit her lip to keep from saying, “You.”

“In all seriousness,” he added, taking on a more reverent tone, “I don’t think we have a problem. But if you like, we can keep sneaking you out in the morning and sneaking you in at night.”

“We just need to keep this up for a couple more days, then I should be able to go back to my room.” She reached over to grab a book off the desk and positioned herself against the headboard of the bed. “Now, I have like two hundred pages to read before lunch so go sit at your computer and be quiet.”

“As you wish.”

***

After their Music in Popular Culture class, Rae and Finn returned to their building to drop off their books before grabbing dinner with the gang. Coming out of the stairwell onto Finn’s floor, however, they saw the pair of pricks leaving the room next to Finn’s.

Rae did her best to ignore them, but instead of going into Finn’s room to deposit her laptop and textbooks, she knocked on Chloe and Izzy’s door. Finn looked at her, puzzled, as he unlocked his door, but she tried to tell him with her eyes to be cool.

“Hiya, Rae!” said Izzy when she answered her door. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, well, Finn and I just got back from class so I thought I’d see if you two wanted to go eat with me,” said Rae.

“I know, you texted us five minutes ago saying you were on your way,” Izzy said with a laugh. “We were just about to leave when you knocked, silly.”

“Right, well, I beat ya to it. Ha ha! Now, let’s go.”

Chloe approached the doorway and looked at the bag swung over Rae’s shoulder. “Aren’t you going to drop off your book bag—?”

“Down in my room? Yeah, I’ll just swing by on our way out,” said Rae, noticing that the pricks had stopped in the hall and were eavesdropping. “Now, come on, grab your jackets.”

“What about Finn?” Chloe asked as Rae herded her and Izzy out of their room and down the hall.

“He’ll meet us there, whatever.”

Rae made a point of using the stairwell at the opposite end of the corridor to make it seem like she was going down to her room, and even stopped on her floor for a couple minutes just to be sure she wouldn’t run into those guys on the way out of the building.

“What is up with you, Rae?” Chloe asked as they waited.

“We can’t let them know that I’m staying in Finn’s room right now or they’ll get us in trouble,” Rae explained.

“Who? Charles and—“

“Don’t tell me their names! I don’t want to dignify their existence by learning their names!”

“Has anyone told you that you’re a bit weird?”

“Yes. Now, come on, let’s go.”

***

Finn, Chop, and Archie were already at the dining hall by the time the girls arrived, after having been delayed by Rae’s weirdness.

“Those knobheads haven’t got half a brain between ‘em,” said Chop when Rae explained why she’d taken a detour.

“That doesn’t mean they aren’t obnoxious,” said Archie. “I can’t walk past them without one of them muttering the word ‘poof’ or ‘queer’ under their breath.”

“Look, Raemundo,” Chop added, “it’s not like you haven’t got a good excuse to be ‘round Finn’s all the time, right? Just tell ‘em you’re gettin’ busy, if ya know what I mean.”

Rae was glad that Finn smacked him in the arm so she didn’t have to.

“That’s actually not the worst idea in the world,” said Chloe.

“What?” Rae snapped.

“Well, I mean, if they knew the two of you were dating, it would be less suspicious that you’re always around. And if they thought you were…doin’ it…it would explain you being there late at night.”

“Can’t people have sex during the day?” Izzy asked curiously.

“Well, yeah,” said Chloe. “But these two have got full course loads—they’re too busy during the day, right?”

“Oh.”

“Bollocks,” Chop interjected. “They’re at the beginning of a relationship, yeah? So they’re doing it all the time—day, night, it don’t matter.”

“Alright, how about you stop talking about our hypothetical sex life as if we’re not even here,” said Finn, shaking his head, clearly not quite as uncomfortable as Rae, who wanted to just disappear in her seat.

“Hypothetical?” said Chop.

Archie replied, “It means ‘theoretical’ or—“

“I know what ‘hypothetical’ means!”

Rae wondered if she should make a run for the exit or if that would just make things worse. Maybe if she just kept going until she was home with her mum and never returned then it would all be okay…

***

“Do you think we should tell them?” Rae asked Finn once they were back in his room.

“Tell who what?” he said as he kicked off his shoes and flopped onto his bed.

“Tell those jerks that we’re…”

“Gettin’ busy?”

“Dating!”

“Oh. I don’t really care one way or the other if they know. You were the one who wanted to keep things secret anyway.”

Rae leaned on the edge of the desk across the room. “Do you…think it’s weird that we haven’t…?”

“I didn’t think you wanted to yet,” he said, sitting upright.

“We never talked about it, though.”

“Yeah, but your body language says enough.”

“My body language?”

“Let’s put it this way: I come in and lay on my bed, you come in and stand in the opposite corner of the room.”

She folded her arms nervously.

“It’s okay,” he added. “I’m cool with whatever you want.”

“That makes me feel worse, somehow,” she said.

“Okay, then I’m not cool with it?”

She grimaced.

“What do you want from me?” he added with a laugh.

“I don’t know!”

He sat silently for a minute before he began bouncing slightly on the bed, making it squeak a couple of times. He stopped and looked at Rae with a cheeky grin on his face.

“What?” she said, eyeing him suspiciously.

He squeaked the bed a couple more times, smacked the wall, and let out a loud grunt. “Oh wait,” he said, stopping. “That side’s Chloe and Iz’s room.” He rolled off the bed and hopped up on the one across the room, making it squeak instead.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

He continued bouncing and hitting the wall and headboard with his elbows. “Ooh, yeah, talk dirty to me.”

“Oh my god!”

“You like that?” he said loudly.

She tried to hold back laughter. “I don’t believe you,” she said. He moaned some more and she shook her head. “These are the most cartoonish sex noises I’ve ever heard.”

“Then you, my friend, have not watched a lot of porn.”

“I have watched none, thank you very much.”

“Oh, god, Rae!”

“Don’t say my name!” she hissed.

“Well, I don’t want them thinking I’ve got some other girl in here, do I? Now, come on, join in or they’re going to think I’m just masturbating furiously.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Don’t be a prude,” he said in a louder voice, giving her a wink.

Rae looked shocked. “You are unbelievable.”

“I told ya you’d like it.”

“Quit it, alright?” She walked over to the bed and put her hands on his shoulders to keep him from bouncing, but he grabbed her arms and pulled her next to him. She collapsed forward gracelessly onto the bed with a squeak.

“That’s more like it,” he said, helping her up to a seated position. “I think we need to work the headboard more, though.” He turned and kneeled facing the headboard and started to shake it with his arms.

“Oh, Finn,” she said in a monotone, “you are really rocking my world now.”

“When you say it like that, I almost don’t believe you.”

“Oh, Finn,” she repeated, louder and with fake enthusiasm, “you are really rocking my world now!”

A pounding noise came from the other side of the wall along with the muffled sound of someone yelling, “Shut up!”

Rae stifled a laugh. “I didn’t think he could actually hear us.”

“Are you kidding?” said Finn. “I hear him in there with his girlfriend all the time. These walls are paper thin.”

“He has a girlfriend? Ew.”

“Well, I don’t know who she is, but she comes over every few days and they make worse noise than that.”

“Ew.”

He laughed a little then looked down at the duvet bunched up underneath him. “I totally ruined your neatly made bed, by the way.”

“And are you going to fix it?”

“Does it look like I know how to make a bed?” he said, pointing at the typical disorderly pile of blankets on his side of the room.

“Did your mother never teach you that?” she teased.

“There’s a lot of things my mother never taught me.” He turned to sit beside her. “I grew up with my dad. I didn’t see her very often.”

“Oh. How come?”

He shrugged. “She had a new family that were more important, I s’pose.”

“You never told me you had siblings!”

“Oh, yeah, I guess I do. Half, anyway. I don’t really know ‘em at all.”

“So she just cut you out of her life?” Rae could hardly believe a mother could do something like that, but then she remembered her own dad…

“I still get cards at Christmas, and sometimes my birthday—“

“Sometimes?”

“Do you really expect her to remember the birthdays of all three of her children all the time?” He laughed but it sounded forced.

“Well at least you get something. I didn’t even know my dad for the first sixteen years of my life. And then when I did get to know him, he didn’t really know how to be a dad. I’m better off without him.”

“I’d say the same about my mum, but clearly I could’ve used her to teach me how to make a bed properly.”

“I’ll teach you,” she said, standing up next to the bed, relieved that the direction of conversation changed before it got too much heavier. “Get up.”

Finn slouched down until he was lying on the bed with his legs outstretched. “I can learn from here.”

“I can’t make the bed with you in it!”

“This is actually the easiest way to make a bed. Observe.” He tucked his legs under the bunched up duvet and held onto the top of it with his hands before kicking the bottom towards the end of the bed. He reached out his limbs to spread the duvet across the whole bed and kicked a couple more times until it was in place. “See?”

“It’ll just get unmade again when you get out, though.”

“I guess I’m stuck here forever.”

“And where am I supposed to sleep tonight?”

“You could take my bed.”

She looked over to the other side of the room. “I doubt you’ve washed your sheets since you moved in.”

“That’s a fair assumption.” He scooted towards the wall and pulled back the top corner of the blanket. “Get in, then.”

“I’m not going to share a bed with you!”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m too fat to fit next to you and what if you accidentally bump your crotch against me in the night or what if I fart, oh god!” was what she didn’t say to him. Instead she said, “Because it would disrupt my sleep-counting.”

“Heaven forbid.” He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, but before he could stand, he pulled Rae down next to him. “It feels like I hardly saw you today.”

“I saw you this morning. And in class. And at dinner.”

“I mean alone. We’ve just wasted a good half hour of alone time when we could have been doing…other things.”

“I’m not the one who decided to start jumping on the bed like—“

He kissed her before she could finish her sentence. Apparently he was done wasting time.

***

“What happened to your chin?” Chloe asked, noticing the abrasion on Rae’s face when she sat down across from her for lunch.

“Is it bad?” said Rae as she tried to her hand over her chin without drawing attention to it. She had tried to cover it with makeup earlier, but that just sort of made it look dry and patchy.

“It just looks painful. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. It’s just, me an’ Finn made out for a few hours last night and the stubble on his chin kept rubbing against my face.”

“A few _hours_?”

“Well, it’s not as if we’re doing anything else, is it?”

“You two made quite a racket for not doing anything else…”

“That was just him being a dickhead to annoy people. Myself included.”

“So are you seriously going to spend this whole week in his room and not sleep with him?”

“My presentation is this afternoon, so I’m only staying until tonight. And no, I’m not going to sleep with him by then.”

“But—“

“End of discussion!”

“Okay, okay.” Chloe pushed her food around her plate with her fork for a minute before adding, “But why not? He’s so fit.”

“I know! That’s why not.”

“That…doesn’t make sense.”

Rae sighed. “Look at me, Chloe. Do I look like I belong with someone like him?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I can’t wear purple or else I look like Lumpy Space Princess.”

“Rae…”

“I’m a blob, and he’s just—he’s perfect.”

“One, nobody is perfect, not even him. I mean, his eyebrows are huge, for starters.”

“I actually like that,” Rae mumbled.

“Okay, see? You like his imperfections, and he likes yours.”

“So it’s alright that I’m fat and ugly because he likes it?” she said skeptically.

“You’re not ugly, Rae!”

“Oh, but you’re saying I’m fat?”

“Jesus, Rae. You’re just trying to find fault in everything!” said Chloe. “Can’t you just accept that he likes you as you are, and let yourself get some?”

Rae stared down at her half-eaten lunch. “But what if he doesn’t actually like me in that way?” she said. “What if he realizes how ridiculous we look together? I mean, those guys down the hall seem to think the idea of anyone being into me is totally ridiculous—“

“Those guys are jerks, Rae, ignore them. And of course Finn likes you. He made out with you until your face was raw!”

“That’s not the same thing as being really…interested.”

“Okay, not to get too graphic here, but, uh, what was going on…in his trouser area at the time?”

“Oh my god! It’s not like I was checking!”

“You didn’t even dry rub? What the hell are you two doing for hours?”

“Didn’t I say ‘end of discussion’ already?”

***

“Dry rub” sounded like some sort of seasoning for a steak, Rae thought as she sat in class. Yet she couldn’t stop imagining it. At least it distracted her from the fact that her presentation was coming up soon.

Actually, it had her so distracted that she didn’t even realize the presentation before hers had gone too long until the professor dismissed everyone, postponing Rae’s presentation until Friday. That meant two more nights in Finn’s room, alone together.

She wondered if maybe she should lie and say that her presentation was over and just return to her assigned room, even if it meant running the risk of getting sick from her roommate. It might be a better alternative than constantly worrying about what was going on in Finn’s trouser area.

What if they were making out hardcore and there was nothing going on down there at all? Or worse, what if there was something going on? Rae wasn’t sure she could handle it, figuratively or literally.

Why did Chloe have to bring up his trouser area anyway? Rae had been perfectly content just editing that part out of her mind until now. Even in her constant daydreaming—and night dreaming—it was all a bit abstract.

“How’d it go?”

Rae was startled when she saw Finn leaning against a wall outside her classroom. “Jeez! Stalker much?”

“My seminar let out early so I thought I would walk back with you,” he said. “How was your big presentation?”

“Oh, uh, it got pushed to Friday. But don’t worry about me staying longer. I can still go back to my room tonight—I’ve imposed enough.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you can stay as long as you need to.”

“Right, I know, it’s just—“

“Look, I have an idea of something fun we can do tonight, yeah?”

“What is it?” she asked nervously.

“I’ll tell you after dinner.” He held onto her hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

***

“This is not exactly what I thought you meant when you said you had a fun idea for tonight,” Rae said, sitting on the floor beneath a canopy of sheets that were fastened together with her own hair ties and clips and propped up on chairs.

“What did you think I meant?” Finn said with an eyebrow lift.

“I don’t know! I just wasn’t expecting a blanket tent, is all.”

“Is it not fun, though?”

Rae smiled reluctantly. “Yeah, alright, it’s kind of fun. But I feel a bit juvenile.”

“Juvenile? You still read Harry Potter fanfiction—“

“How did you—?”

“You really need to put a better password on your laptop.”

“You logged into my laptop? Finn!”

“I’m kidding! I just saw over your shoulder one time. Don’t worry, it was super boring and not dirty at all, from what I could tell.”

She shoved him with her foot from across the tent. “You’re the one with the dirty browser history, ya perv.”

“Hey, it’s a normal eighteen-year-old guy’s browser history.”

“So, basically disgusting?”

“Basically.”

“Well, now that we’re in our ‘marquee,’ so to speak, shall we watch the _Bake Off_ finale?” Rae said as she reached up to get her computer off the desk behind her.

When she turned back around, she noticed that Finn had scooted across the floor so that he was lying right next to her spot. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Getting ready to watch _Bake Off_ with you, obviously.”

“I thought you were going to sit over there, though.”

“Well, now you can put the laptop there and we can be together over here.”

“Okay…” She got her laptop ready to play the episode and crawled over to the other side of the tent to set it down. She looked back over her shoulder to make sure he was ready to start watching and noticed him staring at her behind, which made her self-conscious about wearing leggings-as-pants on this particular occasion.

“C’mere a second,” he said before biting his bottom lip.

She turned herself around and crawled back towards him.

“Closer,” he added, motioning with his finger.

She sighed and stretched out onto her side, facing him, so she could lower her head to his level.

“Hi.” He smiled, brushing away the hair that had fallen in her face.

“You’d better make this quick; I want to see who wins,” she said jokingly.

“I already found out on Twitter, so…”

“Cheeky!” She started to sit up but he held onto her waist.

“You can wait five more minutes,” he pleaded.

“Five whole minutes? I don’t know about that.”

“Two?”

“Fine, two minutes.”

She didn’t find out who won.

***

“Is something wrong, Rae?” Izzy asked as she noticed Rae was walking funny on the way to breakfast.

“Just my back,” said Rae. “I slept with Finn on the floor last night and—“

Chloe, who had been a couple paces ahead of them, stopped and turned around suddenly, causing Rae to collide with her. “YOU SLEPT WITH FINN?” she asked, holding Rae by the shoulders.

“I mean we literally fell asleep together on the floor. We were too lazy to dismantle the blanket tent by the time we were done…doing things.”

“I’m going to skip over the blanket tent bit and ask: what sort of _things_? Sexy things?”

“None-of-your-business things.”

“Jesus, Rae. Are you at least gonna let him whack it in ya before we graduate?”

“Chloe!” Rae and Izzy said at the same time.

“Sorry, but I don’t know what you’re waiting for. You’re into him, and he’s into you. You’re both adults. Just do it already.”

“It’s not that simple, is it?” Rae said angrily. “Yeah, I’m into him, and judging by his trouser area last night, he’s into me—but I don’t know what I’m doing and he… He…”

“You think he does?”

“Well, yeah!”

“He’s eighteen, Rae! He knows bugger all!”

“He’s had sex before, though.”

“That doesn’t make him an expert. You know your body better than he does—you’ve just got to let him know what you like.”

***

Letting Finn know what she liked was easier said than done when Rae wasn’t even exactly sure what she liked. They made out for a while between his classes, though, and she knew she definitely liked that. They’d ended up horizontal on his bed by the time he had to leave. (What happened to three-feet-on-the-floor, Rae?)

She continued to lie there even after he’d left, thinking about what Chloe had said. Perhaps he wasn’t some sort of _sexpert_ after all, which meant that Rae needed to figure out what she liked in order to tell him.

She had a basic idea, of course; things she’d done alone in the privacy of her own bedroom. And she had a few more ideas since starting things with Finn. For instance, she now knew that she liked when he felt up her chest, which was surprising since touching it herself did nothing for her and she’d always assumed her tits were useless.

She had to clamp her thighs shut as she started to think about him touching her again. She rolled her head to the side and smelled his pillow—his scent was another thing she knew she liked. She clenched her legs together more firmly. Maybe she liked it too much.

She wriggled uncomfortably as she contemplated doing something about the situation in her pants. It was for research purposes, though, right?

She thought about some of the things she liked: Finn’s eyes. (She rested her hand on her stomach.) Finn’s arms. (She lifted the waistband of her leggings.) The way he kissed her with just a little tongue. (She slid her hand down between her legs.) The thought of him touching her there…

The door opened without warning and she pulled her hand out of her leggings as quickly as she possibly could and clamped her legs shut again. She looked up to see Finn walking into the room, giving her a confused expression.

“What are you doing?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Nothing,” she said as she sat up, though she could tell her face was probably red. “What are you doing?”

“I forgot my phone,” he said as he went to pick it up off his desk. “You weren’t…?”

“I was just taking a nap.”

“Oh, okay, ‘cause it looked like you were masturbating.”

“Jesus, Finn!”

“It’s perfectly normal.”

“I wasn’t doing anything!”

He leaned against the desk. “I could lend a hand, if you wanted…”

“Don’t you have a class to get to?”

“Maybe later, then?” He walked to the door but stopped and looked at her before opening it. “To be continued.”

***

Rae ended up falling asleep on her side of the room with a book next to her, but woke up when she heard loud voices in the corridor. She got up and took a few steps towards the door until she could hear what was being said.

“Your girlfriend is a fat fucking cow,” said one voice—presumably belonging to one of the pricks next door.

“Why don’t you come a little closer and say that? I didn’t quite hear you,” said another voice, clearly belonging to Finn.

“How do you even fuck something that size?”

“If you have to ask that then I feel sorry for your sexual partners. Now, if you’ll excuse me—“

Something got slammed against the door, causing Rae to jump.

“Oi! What’s goin’ on here?” Clearly Chop had heard the kerfuffle and come out of his room across the hall.

“Just chatting with your friend here,” said the first voice.

“You pushed me into the door and called my girlfriend a fucking cow!” Finn hissed.

“Hey, hey, hey! Our Rae is a top bird,” said Chop, “and if you ever bother her or Finn again you’ll have to deal with me, got it?”

Rae could hear a couple people laugh and a nearby door open and close, and then there was silence.

“Y’alright, mate?” said Chop after a few moments.

“Yeah. Who gives a crap about them?” said Finn.

The door handle started to turn and Rae leapt over to her bed to pretend to be reading.

“Were you listening to that?” Finn asked when he came in and spotted her.

“Listening to what?” she said innocently.

“I know you’re not actually reading; your book is upside down.”

She looked at the book in her hands and cursed to herself.

“I’m really sorry about what those guys said, but just know that it isn’t true,” he added.

“But it is. I am a fat cow…”

“Rae,” he said, sitting by her feet. “Do you know why I like you?”

She shook her head.

“You really don’t know?”

“Because…you feel sorry for me?”

He laughed. “I may feel a lot of things for you, but sorry isn’t one of them. You’re tough as shit, you don’t need anyone feeling sorry for ya.”

“Then what is it? I’m not good-looking, and my personality sucks—“

“Wrong on both counts, Rae Rae. You are fun to be around and a good friend—but more than that, you are sexy as fuck.”

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s true! And I’m not the only one that thinks so!”

“What? What have you heard?”

“I’m not saying owt, but you have options when you get sick of me.”

“Are you kidding me? You could have any girl at this school, and twenty percent of the guys,” she said, slamming her book down on the bed. “I know it’s only supposed to be one in ten that are gay, but that’s how hot you are!”

“Now you’re exaggerating.” He smiled and she reluctantly smiled back.

“Maybe a little.”

He scooted up to the head of the bed to sit next to her, moving her book out of the way.

“Hey, I was reading that,” she said.

“No, you weren’t.”

***

“Lois, hi!” said Rae, surprised to see her roommate out and about at the on-campus Open Mic night.

“Oh, hi, Rae!” said Lois, equally surprised to be seen.

“What are you doing here?”

“Um, Archie’s playing tonight, isn’t he?” she asked timidly.

“He is,” Rae replied, “but I thought you were still sick.”

“I’ve just started feeling better, actually…” Lois bit her thumbnail nervously, and then blurted, “Alright, I’ve been feeling better for two days! I just liked having the room to myself for a little while. I mean, I like you, Rae, but sometimes it’s nice just to be alone, y’know? It’s not personal!”

“It’s alright, Lois, I get it.”

“You can come back tonight, if you like, though.”

Rae looked over at the rest of her group who were finding seats before returning her attention to Lois. “No, I’m fine staying with Finn for one more night.”

But Rae wasn’t entirely sure. Chloe had been dropping hints all evening that this was the night that Rae should _go for it_ with Finn. And after her and Finn’s intensive make-out sessions earlier that day, Rae wondered if that was where the night was headed.

***

The rest of the gang stayed out to drink more, as none of them had Friday morning classes, but Finn and Rae headed back to his room for the night.

Rae watched as Finn took off his jacket and proceeded to flop onto his bed as she stood by the closed door.

“C’mere,” he said, craning his neck to look at her.

“What?” she said with a nervous laugh.

“Just c’mere.” He scooted over so she could lie next to him and he put his arm around her. “I’ve been thinking a lot about tonight, y’know? About what we should do for your last night here.”

“Yeah?”

“We nearly did it last night, so I figured we might as well do it tonight…” He traced squiggles on her upper arm with his finger.

_This is it_ , she thought.

“We should watch the _Bake Off_ —“

“I’m not ready to have sex with—wait, did you say _Bake Off_?”

“Yeah, you still haven’t found who won, have you?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Alright, then,” he said, smiling at her. “I figured we’d better watch it now before you get spoiled on it somehow. We can do sex stuff whenever; that’s much less urgent.”

He kissed her on the forehead before getting up and reaching for his laptop on his desk. She could hardly believe how considerate he was, and she knew that some day, when she was ready, she was going to shag his lights out.

“Ready?” he asked once he’d gotten the episode ready to play.

“You bet I am.”


End file.
